To Serve
by subtle tea
Summary: Robert wants to go to the front. Cora wants him to stay.


Robert had been gloomy for weeks. His country was at war. The nation was calling its able-bodied young men to fight for king and country. Those who were eligible and had not enlisted would begin being conscripted shortly, and yet, when the Earl of Grantham and veteran of the Second Anglo-Boer War had inquired about returning to active service, he had been refused. They had done it gently, of course, giving him the ceremonial colonelcy with the North Riding Volunteers, but, just as with his position as Lord Lieutenant, there would be no battles for him, only speeches. The message was as clear as day to Robert - he was unfit to serve no matter how dire the situation was at the front. He felt useless as he watched his footman, William, leave for France and his daughter work as a nurse. He entered his wife's bedroom with a heavy sigh.

"What's the matter, darling?" Cora already knew the answer but asked anyway just to try to spark a conversation. He had be growing more and more distant by the day.

"Didn't you know, Cora," he grumbled, "here lying beside you is a foolish, worthless, old man." He rolled onto his side turning away from her.

"That's funny, I see the love of my life lying beside me," Cora said. She'd hoped that her words would at least get him to turn over so she could get close, but he didn't move.

"I had always thought it would happen slower - that growing older would just sort of wash over you gradually like a tide, but it doesn't. It's like a thread that you keep pulling on until one day it snaps and you're suddenly too old to be of any use to anyone." He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling as Cora wrapped her arms around him.

"You're still of use to me." she cooed and kissed his neck.

"I wasn't talking about you," he groaned. "I was talking about things that are important and meaningful." He knew as soon as he said it that his last sentence had been a mistake.

Cora pulled away from him and sat up in bed. "I'm tired of being an afterthought, Robert!

"Cora, you don't understand." Robert tried to interrupt, but Cora just talked over his objections.

"You left me here for over three years while you fought in the last war. You enlisted without even telling me and then you were gone the day after Christmas and I was on my own with our three girls." Cora knew this was going nowhere, but she still wanted to make her opinions known.

"With a nurse, the rest of the staff, and my parents in the house, you were hardly on your own." Robert huffed.

"That's not the same. They didn't have the girls crawling into their beds crying and asking why their Papa wouldn't come home to them." Cora had never talked much about what it had been like at home without him because he never seemed to want to know. She didn't care whether he wanted to hear it now or not - he was going to. "Mary tried to have herself posted to you in South Africa. When the postman asked her how she should be packed, she answered…"

"With plenty of chocolate biscuits." Robert said with a smile. "You wrote me about that. Within the space of one week I don't think there was a soul in the regiment that hadn't heard me tell that story." He sighed again. "They wouldn't be upset about it if I were away at war now," Robert said. "They'd be proud of me for serving my country instead of putting on a uniform everyday and prancing around the estate like a child playing pretend"

"They would be as afraid for you as I was for those three miserable years. The way things have changed guns can shoot farther, faster, and more accurately and they seem to have found a whole new host of way to kill each other, but they haven't found a way to make it harder to get killed. I'm not ready to lose you. How would I survive without you?" Cora knew that she would never get through to him that way. "The War Office has given you a part to play and you've dismissed it as not good enough. They've said you're service is important here at home and yet you doubt them even as you make speeches saying that 'a person doesn't need to be on the front lines to do their part for the nation'."

Robert had had enough of Cora's fussing. "You don't know the first thing about any of this! This is about duty and honor and patriotism and…"

Cora hadn't expected him to be so hurtful. "Get out! Get out of my room! How can you lie there as our house is being turned into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers whom the whole family tends to daily and say that I don't know anything about duty and honor and patriotism. I may not have gone to war, Robert, but I think I have done my part and I'm doing my part right now. Now get out of my bed!"

He stayed where he was."Cora, you know perfectly well that I didn't mean it that way."

"Leave!" Cora snapped.

He remained beside her. "Cora…"

"Fine, if you won't go, then I will." She hopped out of bed and went into his dressing room and slammed the door behind her, leaving Robert alone in her bed. He stayed there thinking for hours before he slowly got up and made his way to his dressing room. He turned on the light and looked at his sleeping wife. He loved to watch her sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed and gently rubbed her shoulder. "Cora, wake up." She gave a contented sigh and rolled onto her stomach. She always loved it when he rubbed her back. As he gently massaged her back, her eyes fluttered open and she lied there looking at him. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. It was hurtful and wrong. The work you're doing is noble and very patriotic. I couldn't be prouder of you, my dearest."

She moved over and let him get into bed beside her and he wrapped his arms around her. "We've moved into a new phase of our life, darling." She sighed. "I don't turn the soldiers' heads and you aren't going to the front. Now we're watching our children and friends' children do those things. It's their turn. It's not worth fighting with time because we cannot win the battle. We have a different role now."

"I suppose you have a point," Robert said as he kissed her on the temple "but I have to disagree with you on one thing - you can still turn the soldiers' heads. You're as lovely today as you were the day we got married."

"You didn't love me for the first year of our marriage." Cora said looking down at her hands.

"It wasn't a year," Robert muttered.

"It felt like five," Cora said as she rolled over to face him. "and that war felt like a lifetime. When you came back, it was like having a stranger in my home the way you wouldn't talk to me the way you had before you left. I don't want you to be a stranger to me ever again. I know it sounds selfish and maybe it is, but I'm happy you aren't going to France because I can't bear the thought of losing you or having you distance yourself so much from me." She snuggled into his chest and he held her tight.

"I'm not going anywhere and the only positive thing about that is that I get to stay with you." He kissed her forehead. "I will try to cheer up, I promise. At least I'm in the uniform. I suppose that's something."

Cora looked up at him and smiled. "It certainly is. You're so handsome in your uniform." She ran her fingers through his hair.

"Are you trying to start something?" Robert asked as he let his hands begin to wander over her back.

Cora pressed against him and whispered flirtatiously, "Turn out that light and find out."


End file.
